"How can I accept such terms from a man I do not love?" cried Molly. "Would I not be one of the basest of women to persuade you that I loved you just to become your wife, when my heart is another's?"
"How can your heart be another's when Jack is no more?" asked he.
"Yes, yes; in death my heart shall still be his," Molly cried.
"Come, now, you're talking like a mad girl. Just listen to reason a bit. I will settle a good round sum a year upon you to keep you as a lady in a nice little cottage with a garden, where I shall always be able to come to pay you a visit in secret, when my father is out of the way."
"Then you never from the first intended to marry me," interrupted Molly, "you only—only—wanted to——"
"Why, actually marry you, no; I never intended that. That would be impossible, but——"
"Exactly; I understand you," answered Molly, proudly, "but I scorn your base proposals. If you were to lay the wealth of the universe at my feet, I would never barter my good name. So this is what you have been trying at all this time, to make me your minion.
"When first you visited me, you gave me to understand that your intentions were honourable, and though I loved you not, and never could, yet I respected you and felt compassion for you and tried to think of you as a friend. Now I neither pity nor respect you, but despise you. Go, sir, and never dare to speak to me again!"
"What a trump of a girl!" I muttered to myself.
"Molly! Molly!" cried Rashly, starting backward in amazement, "are you mad?"